Most book launches on Instagram follow the same pattern: a cover reveal, a flurry of "it's out!" posts on launch day, and then silence. The silence is the expensive part. Readers often need to see a book several times before they buy it, and many of them will only notice yours in the weeks after launch day.
A plan fixes that. This one gives you 25 posts across three phases: six weeks of pre-launch, launch week, and four weeks after. It works for a debut novel, a nonfiction book, a poetry collection or a self-published guide. Adjust the topics; keep the shape.
Before you start
Gather these once, so every post is quick to make:
- The cover at high resolution, plus a flat version and a mock-up.
- Five to ten short quotes from the book that stand alone.
- The first lines, and one short excerpt you are happy to share.
- Where to buy: your preferred retailer, your bookshop link, and pre-order links.
- The launch date, and any events (a reading, a newsletter, a live session).
- Who it is for, in one sentence.
- Two or three photos of you at work, if you are comfortable showing your face.
The 25-post plan
The plan below assumes posting two or three times a week before launch, most days in launch week, and twice a week after. "L" is launch day; "L−35" is 35 days before.
Phase 1: pre-launch (11 posts, about six weeks)
| # | When | Post | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | L−42 | Announcement: there's a book, here's the title and date | Single image |
| 2 | L−38 | Why I wrote it | Carousel or talking reel |
| 3 | L−35 | Cover reveal | Single image, then the cover in context |
| 4 | L−31 | Behind the pages: research, drafts, the desk | Carousel |
| 5 | L−28 | What's inside: chapters or themes, one per slide | Carousel |
| 6 | L−24 | First lines | Quote card |
| 7 | L−21 | Pre-order: why it helps and where | Single image with link in bio |
| 8 | L−17 | Who it's for | Carousel |
| 9 | L−14 | Countdown: two weeks | Story-style post |
| 10 | L−7 | Countdown: one week, with a short excerpt | Carousel |
| 11 | L−2 | Countdown: two days, pre-order reminder | Single image |
The pre-orders post deserves a real explanation. Many readers do not know that early orders help a book get stocked and noticed. Tell them, plainly, once.
Phase 2: launch week (8 posts)
| # | When | Post | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | L | It's out | Single image or reel |
| 13 | L | Where to get it: every link, every format | Carousel |
| 14 | L+1 | Thank you to early readers and everyone who helped | Single image |
| 15 | L+2 | A favourite line | Quote card |
| 16 | L+3 | Who it's for, revisited for people just arriving | Carousel |
| 17 | L+4 | Reader reactions (shared with permission) | Carousel of screenshots |
| 18 | L+5 | A short excerpt | Carousel |
| 19 | L+6 | Launch week recap | Carousel |
Two posts on launch day is fine: one celebration, one practical. On reactions: only share readers' posts and messages with their permission, and credit them. Never invent reviews or quotes. How to repost with credit covers asking politely.
Phase 3: after launch (6 posts, four weeks)
| # | When | Post | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | L+9 | Quote cards: three favourite lines | Carousel |
| 21 | L+13 | A longer excerpt or a scene | Carousel |
| 22 | L+17 | Reader questions, answered | Carousel or reel |
| 23 | L+21 | Behind a scene: what inspired one chapter | Carousel |
| 24 | L+25 | Gift it: who would love this book | Single image |
| 25 | L+30 | Still here: a reminder for people who missed launch | Single image |
After this, fold the book into your normal posting: a quote card every week or two, and the "gift it" post again around holidays.
Making the posts quickly
Twenty-five posts sounds like a lot. Three things make it manageable:
- Templates. Design a quote card, a carousel cover and an excerpt slide once in your brand colours and fonts, then reuse them. Consistency also makes the campaign recognisable in the feed.
- Write in batches. Draft all of pre-launch in one sitting, all of launch week in another. Captions come faster when you are already in the voice.
- Schedule everything ahead. On launch day you want to be talking to readers, not formatting slides.
Hashtags and captions
Instagram now allows at most five hashtags per post. For books, a reliable set is one or two broad reading-community tags, one genre tag, and one tag for the book itself if you want readers to use it. Keep captions short, start with a hook line, and end with one clear action: pre-order, save this, tell a friend.
Learning from the campaign
You do not need a dashboard to learn from a launch. After each phase, look at your Instagram insights and note three things: which posts were saved and shared most, which ones brought clicks to your link, and which ones got replies or messages. Saves and shares tell you what readers found worth keeping; replies tell you what started a conversation. Write the answers down. When the paperback comes out, or the next book, you will already know whether your readers respond better to quote cards, excerpts or behind-the-scenes posts, and you can weight the next plan towards them.
If your launch is less than six weeks away
Squeeze phase 1 rather than skipping it: keep the announcement, the cover reveal, first lines, pre-order and two countdowns, and post them across the days you have left. Launch week and after stay the same.
Doing it in Social Snagger
This plan follows the book template in Social Snagger's Plan my launch. In the app you go to Create, then Launches, then Plan a launch, and tell it what is launching (book, product or app, course or offer), the launch day, what it is, who it is for, where to get it, and any facts the posts can use. You choose Light (10 posts), Steady (20) or Full (25).
Every post is written as soon as the plan is made, using the AI you have connected: Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, or a free local model through Ollama or LM Studio (see writing captions with local AI). You can rewrite, edit, remove or add any post. The slides are drawn in your brand kit (cover, quote, list and call-to-action designs, with your logo and link), so the text stays crisp.
If the publisher moves your date, move the launch date and every post that is not booked yet moves with it. A launch closer than six weeks squeezes pre-launch into the days left, as above. Make ready & book renders every post and books each one on its planned day, and Home shows a countdown with how much is booked. Fill never borrows a launch post for something else, and any multi-part posts can run as a series kept in order.
Try it
Your book deserves more than one launch-day post. Download Social Snagger, free for Mac, and plan the whole campaign in one sitting.